


Thistle

by dimtraces



Series: With a little water and a little bit of sunlight [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (or rather--an extended conversation about why torture does not work), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Jedi Maul, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 18:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: Weeks ago, Maul decided against surrendering the Sith he saved to the Jedi Council. He should have foreseen the consequences.





	Thistle

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Mention of speciesism, torture, past abuse, murder committed as an undercover agent. Nothing explicit.

“With—” Maul bites his tongue. _Do not say_ with regret _. Do not lie. They will surely know._ They are watching him, twelve pairs of unmoving eyes in the sunlit familiarity of the Council Chambers. “Masters, I do not know where Savage Opress is.”

“And yet, the Sith was in your custody,” Master Tiin replies.

“Protective custody.”

Master Koth frowns. “Who were you protecting him from?”

The question is unnecessary, perhaps asked as a provocation. Everybody here knows the true answer, if they are capable of investigating the world without having to resort to mere interrogation. There has been an abundance of evidence, from the very fact of this hearing, to Maul’s confrontational posture, to Savage’s disappearance, that speaks more loudly than any words could.

 _I am protecting him from_ you _._

 _From your clumsy, superfluous,_ counterproductive _attempts at intelligence-gathering._

Of course, that’s the whole problem. The High Council believe in interrogation. They do not accept that sometimes—that usually, that _always_ , it’s more sensible to observe and entice, instead of squeezing their target until the information drips out. Brains, Maul would like to shout at them, are not citrus fruits. Unlike juice, information is generally useless when it’s mashed and jumbled up. And citrus fruits do not survive their encounter with the juicer. However, that would be undiplomatic.

“Protection from his slave master. From Count Dooku,” Maul says instead. He looks at Depa while he speaks, gripping his right gloved wrist tightly behind his back. Hers is a friendly sad face in a sea of suspicion. He cannot even bring himself to look at Master Windu, let alone Grandmaster Yoda or anyone else. He has no further desire to see the other Masters’ instinctive sympathetic winces at this characterization of the formerly venerated Jedi Master. Dooku may be their enemy now, but he has earned respect. Sympathy that they have not yet unlearned, for one of their own—though lapsed—and sympathy they do not feel for the outer rim darkside cult’s slave sold to be the Sith Lord’s punching bag. Sorry, apprentice. Sympathy they do not feel for Maul’s abused, helpless _brother_.

Maul can't even blame them. It's not like he thought any different, before he met Savage.

“Savage Opress was just a slave. He gladly left Count Dooku’s service and told me everything he knows. Everything. I submitted pages upon pages of intel. I let him go because there was nothing to be gained from fear that was not already confessed to kindness.”

“Know not where your padawan is, either, hmmm?”

“I do not, Master Yoda.”

It had been Gwyolduhbeccu’s idea, when they realized that they’d already spent two weeks on the beaches of Corellia and would need to make contact soon, or risk being counted among the Fallen. Risk being seen as no better than the blasted traitor Dooku. It was a good idea, and a decent chance to hand her the reins of mission planning—to distract her with building a fanciful paper chase—but still, unfortunately, useless.

Useless, because despite Maul’s return they risk censure anyway. The Council has been questioning him for an hour now, not about fallen Ventress and her Master Dooku’s falling-out or the information that Maul brought or the unseasonably cloudy weather on Corellia—a diversion that was unwise in retrospect, putting everyone even more on edge—not about anything of note, but only, over and over, about where his brother is, despite the fact that Maul has already informed them that he was just an unwilling, unhappy pawn.

Maul also genuinely doesn’t know Savage’s current whereabouts. He doesn’t even have a direct way of contacting either his padawan or his brother; if he wants to rejoin them, he’ll place an ‘all-clear’ ad in coded Shyriiwook in the crackpot rag Coruscanti Socialite News, and Becs will reply with another ad that’ll direct Maul to another hint to puzzle out where she has brought Savage. There is no way for Maul to betray his brother’s location, by choice or accident or if the Council crack open his mind. He still doesn’t know whether that ability is an exaggeration of a rumor—knowing what Maul does of the brain’s workings, it should not produce results, especially not in him who has someone to protect—and he truly doesn’t want to find out.

_(Maul had been beyond proud of his padawan’s infosec instincts, but when Gwyolduhbeccu had realized that her proposed precautions were those of a terror cell that wants to convince their potential captors that there is nothing to be gained from torture, she’d flinched, hard. Maul had reassured her that they were still loyal to the Order, but it had not calmed her nerves._

_“What does that make us?” she had warbled. “I assumed they might force you._ Hurt _you. And still, we are loyal.”_

_They had quickly agreed not to tell Savage of their worries or the plans for risk mitigation. He’d already lost one brother. He would never have let Maul enter the Temple.)_

The Masters repeat their questions, and Maul his answer, for another half-hour. He feels small inside the Council Chambers, smaller and _darker_ than he’s ever felt in all the years after Master Windu finished training Depa and chose to take on Maul as his new padawan. He has not felt this unwelcome surrounded by circled chairs in decades, not even during that upbraiding he got when he posed as a goon for Jabba the Hutt five years ago and killed two farmers to keep his cover; two innocents that, after much prodding and soul-searching before the Council, he realized he could conceivably have spared. He feels like a child. After Master Windu’s offer, he thought he’d never have to feel this way again.

These are the rewards of a Council Padawan: comfort born of over-familiarity with the Jedi’s inner sanctum, much leeway in behavior if not in movements, and smug superiority towards everyone else. Only after their trust in him is gone he knows how much he’s basked in it.

 _Here goes Maul again,_ it used to be, _he was strange but now he’s_ _freed from afternoon lessons to carry the top-secret Sith holocrons that Master Yoda wants to examine. See how much they trust him. Here he runs, fetching tea._

Here stands Maul, and he will not give to the Council the only thing they want.

He will not give up Savage Opress.

He will not allow them to make the mistake of interrogating him. Of breaching into his mind with the force. Of hurting him. Of torture.

Finally, the Council cease their questioning and file out of the chamber one by one, not exchanging a further word with Maul. Eeth Koth glares in open suspicion, and Grandmaster Yoda umms and ahhs thoughtfully. Depa lightly punches Maul’s shoulder and slips something into the pocket on the inside of his tabard.

“We cleared Shaum Hii and Ciutric,” says Master Windu, once he is the only person left beside Maul. “Nothing to substantiate the idea that Dooku answers to another, yet. Apart from that, the intelligence you sent was mostly useless.”

Maul bares his teeth: a tick he thought he’d left behind decades ago. “That was to be expected, Master,” he replies. “You cannot unearth what isn’t there. There would have been even less actionable information if the High Council had ‘interrogated’ Opress,” and Master Windu sighs at the contemptuous finger quotes.

“We are at war, Knight Maul.”

“I am aware.”

“We need to protect the Republic. That is the very purpose of the Order. Our hands are bound, and billions of lives are at stake.”

“I know.”

“We need to know of the Separatist locations. We need to know what this Sith acolyte knows.”

“We do know what he knows. Everything. As I have said repeatedly. He _tried_ to cooperate.” He’d tried so hard that it was heartbreaking. Savage had gone through Maul’s interrogation notes obsessively, listening and re-listening and speaking amendments in his hushed shameful baritone, on the datapad they’d configured for him once they found out he was never taught how to read. He hadn’t slept or eaten, just talked. Pages and pages of info, mostly obviously useless even before the stream of unsettled halting annotations. ‘I think’ was a recurring one, and the one that Maul preferred. ‘This is what the place looked like but I didn’t ask what it was, no time, and no-one would have talked to me anyway’ led to an endless supply of hot chocolate. ‘Can’t be sure of the words, too much pain’ made Gwyolduhbeccu tear apart a training dummy with only her teeth.

A desperate wish to be of use to the only people who’d been kind to him in months, an attempt to focus on something less painful than Feral’s death, terror of a failing memory, hatred for his slave master… Maul doesn’t know why his brother kept returning to the notes. He suspects the answer is _because I asked_ , and the guilt made him tell Savage that sand and salty air ruin datapads and then book a beach vacation.

“It was always unlikely that Savage Opress would be a good source of information,” Maul says. “As far as I can tell, he was electrocuted on a nigh-weekly basis. Training, they call it, and _don’t_ , Master, it will not convince me that he Fell. Electrocuted, over and over. The physiological ramifications of that… moreover, fear and dislocation alone aren’t conducive to forming well-preserved memories, either. The brain is a resourceful thing, but when it’s resources are focused on self-preservation, there is no space for accuracy.”

This is a spiel Maul has been repeating to anyone who’ll listen for years now, in order to justify his dark-adjacent spy missions. He’s sent out neuroscience textbooks and invited experts, and Master Windu must surely be tired of it. After all, he is his former padawan’s favorite sounding-board. He’s heard all of this hundreds of times. He’s proofread half the reports that Maul has written.

However—Maul will repeat it as often as he has to. Today, his brother’s well-being aligns with the greater strategic interests of the Order, and he will not give in.

Pain does not gain intelligence.

“He could not have remembered anything more,” Maul says lightly. “Especially not through the counterproductive methods the Council would have employed. That would have been pointless, do you understand? Pointless. Savage cooperated. He tried to help me. He just wasn’t in the know. That venal—the _venerable_ Count Dooku never deigned to talk strategy with his slave.”

“Control your hatred, Maul,” Master Windu chides, but he looks more tired than disapproving. This would have been a meditating offense, at least, before. Before Geonosis. Before exhaustion. Disturbingly, Master Windu looks like he agrees with Maul’s very unpeaceful feelings on Dooku. The war has reduced them all.

For the first time, it occurs to Maul that his specialization has shielded him from much of the horrors of the Separatist War. He has never seen a battlefield. His targets are the criminal and the stupid, and their venality remains unchanged. They have always been awful, and will forever remain so. He has spied on the wretched for all his adult life; he has not lived in harmony and watched it go to ruin.

Maul hates Dooku for stealing that harmony and trust from the man who trained him, and Master Windu… The cause of their dislike for the traitor may be different, but it’s no less personal: Mace Windu has been fighting a war against his brother-padawan for years now. He has counted all the clones lost and the Jedi returned as ashes, as he always tells Maul and Depa quietly on those rare evenings when she’s managed to persuade everyone to get drunk. He has carried the maimed and the soon-dead to safety, all slain because of the defection of a man Master Windu hadn’t necessarily liked— _Maul remembers hiding, being_ allowed _to hide, in his Master’s robes as a young padawan while they watched Dooku train_ —but one that he had admired.

Dooku was Grandmaster Yoda’s padawan before he took Master Windu. The big sister that Depa is to Maul, Dooku is— _should be_ —to his Master, and suddenly, Maul hates him even more. The feeling is unproductive and overwhelming and unwise, and so Maul flees into the argument he is having with one of the only people who already believe him.

“Savage remembered almost nothing with certainty, and that’s in a space where he felt safe, talking to someone he trusts. What could the High Council have done?”

Master Windu sighs. “We feel we could have looked into his mind and seen it for ourselves.”

“And earned the Republic a year of cross-checking false intelligence, and into the bargain, a reputation for torturing its prisoners. A terrified man may sell out his grandpa’s best friend’s akk dog for a reprieve, but that does not make the dog a robber or the hours chasing it well-spent. Finding the dog does not compensate for the hundreds of people who will never talk to you because they are terrified to be next in line for torture,” and then Maul notices that this extended metaphor is but a side-track designed to keep himself from picturing _Savage_ , alone and kneeling in the Council Chambers and in pain. “By the time you look into someone’s mind, you have _hurt_ them. Information retrieval _suffers_ in the conditions you want to create. Shall I send for Master Nu to retrieve the comprehensive study on the neuroscience of why torture does not—”

“We do not torture. We merely seek to interrogate him and look into his mind.”

Maul does not dignify this with an answer.

“ _I_ trust your assessment entirely, Maul,” Master Windu says. “As you well know.”

Maul’s hearts sink. There will be no mission after this. _I trust you entirely_ , Master Windu says, softly stressing the pronoun. This is not the High Council’s verdict, then. _I trust you entirely_ _: the rest, or at least some of them, don’t_. He should have been more prepared for this moment. Their distrust is not new, but the stakes raise with every day of war.

This time, Maul himself has fanned the flames. He _chose_ not to give up Savage Opress, after all. _(It has always been there. Maul was born dark.)_

But the Temple is Maul’s _home_.

“Master Windu, you need me,” Maul says. It’s not begging. It’s not. “I explained to you what does not work. Torture doesn’t work. But spying works. Infiltration works. Manipulation works. You _need_ me.”

“The Council feels that we need loyalists. We need to be careful when tangling with the dark side. We need to prevent another Dooku.”

“Blast your… There is no _loyalty_ in allowing the Order to make a _stupid unnecessary mistake_. You have no grounds for that accusation. I am not Dooku. I am not Falling just because I refused to let you _torture_ my—”

“Interrogate. Watch your feelings, Maul.” Master Windu looks old and exhausted when he holds out his hand. “I will personally carry your saberstaff into storage. Scimitar will be well-stocked and cleared for take-off at twenty-three past midnight tonight. No guards. I trust you know what we need now. You know how to reach Depa and your friends within the GAR. Give my regards to Gwyolduhbeccu.” A beat. “And to Opress.”

“But—”

“If we are both still alive when this war is won, I promise you the Order will take you back with open arms. May the force be with you, Knight Maul.”

“And also with you,” Maul whispers, and then he is alone.

The domed ceiling of the Council Chambers gapes above. It used to be the place where he spent uncounted mind-numbing afternoons serving biscuits and transcribing arguments and daydreaming of wiping the floor again with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Where he brought tea, always making sure that Master Windu’s mug was noticeably bigger than any other. The interrogation is over, and it is not his anymore. It’s unwelcoming, sunlit and empty.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this a few months ago on tumblr, but here it is, extended and cleaned up a bit. I may continue this series, idk, but anyway Maul's choices in Lithops have consequences. Series title's from Absolute Lithops Effect by the Mountain Goats
> 
> I am very leery about the idea of looking into someone's mind with the force to gain accurate info etc, especially the ones that depict it causing pain. The fact that in the real world, torture isn't effective for the purpose of intelligence-gathering (or inducing long-term compliance) and information must be collected by other means has always been background reasoning for Lithops (that’s why Maul attempts to build a rapport with Savage, his whole spy job, etc) but here it’s very explicit. Scripttorture on tumblr is doing an incredible job talking about why torture fundamentally doesn’t work, and the book that Maul is referencing when he says, “Shall I send for Master Nu to retrieve the comprehensive study on the neuroscience of why torture does not—” is Shane O’Mara (2015) Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. A very accessible book for non-neuroscientists about the corrosive effects to memory of the kind of stress that torture causes. Personally I think whether torture works is irrelevant because it’s a crime against humanity and to torture (or accept torture) is to become at least as morally repugnant as the people torturers purport to protect against, but it’s important to be aware that this piece of torture apologia is also utterly untrue. Maul is a far more practical person than I am, so lack of effectiveness is the argument he leans on
> 
> I love Mace Windu. The way he instinctively wants to protect Depa despite horrible accusations in Shatterpoint is very human. He has a very hard job here, sent to defend a position he doesn't really believe in. Sorry dude
> 
> Bananas exist in Star Wars so I'm not going to spend half an hour researching the space equivalent of citrus fruits.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
